Eduardo Rodriguez is Ben Cherington’s answer to his detractors
Eduardo Rodriguez showed his stuff, and Ben Cherington was finally able to extend a middle finger to all his detractors.
That’s what this was really all about, right?
Damn, the kid looked good Thursday night, tossing 7 2/3 shutout innings in a major league debut to remember, posting a 5-1 win over the Texas Rangers to the 22-year-old’s resume. Rodriguez became the youngest Red Sox pitcher to make his MLB debut on the road since a 21-year-old Roger Clemens did it in 1985, as well as the youngest since Billy Rohr, also 21, who made his memorable debut at the New York Yankees on April 14, 1967.
Rohr would go on to win two more games in the majors. Clemens, 354.
Somewhere in between, we presume, lies the potential for the latest Red Sox pitching phenom, a kid the Red Sox were able to swindle from the Baltimore Orioles last year at the trading deadline. How fitting might it be, then, that Rodriguez could be the one to force the beleaguered Joe Kelly out of the rotation — both pitchers were acquired on the same dump day, when Cherington decreed the dawn of a new era for the franchise.
But Kelly, who throws hard, you know, has been an unmitigated disaster during his stint with Boston, while Allen Craig, his deadline counterpart, is mired in Triple-A after the parent club decided it could do without one more incompetent bat in its tired lineup. Kelly is 1-4, with a 6.24 ERA, having allowed 15 hits and nine earned runs over his last 8 2/3 innings pitched. Craig, meanwhile, seems to finding some semblance of his swing back, hitting .315 over 13 games with the PawSox.
Meanwhile, John Lackey, the guy who went to St. Louis in exchange of what’s becoming Boston’s penance for the Heathcliff Slocumb deal, is 2-3 with a 3.18 ERA and making one-twelfth the salary ($500,000) as Kelly and Craig are somehow due.
Ah, but here comes Rodriguez, acquired for Andrew Miller (0.84 ERA with the Yankees this year) for no real reason, to the rescue, making a “spot’’ start in late May for a rotation that doesn’t really have the need for a six-man rotation other than manager John Farrell’s convenient excuse that the team has to face the burden of playing 20 days without a day off through June 7.
So, he’s in the rotation, for now. Right?
“There’s no decision at this point whether he make his next start with us,’’ Farrell said. “I certainly would hope he would.’’
Please. The decision was made the moment Joe Kelly gave up his seventh run in Minnesota on Monday.
Rodriguez’s arrival coincides nicely during a week in which both Farrell and Cherington listened for their heads called amongst an angry fan base tired of watching a drab product that seems destined for another lackluster season under its belt. The Red Sox are 22-26, having pulled themselves out of last place in the division with their win in Texas Thursday night. As a team, they’re hitting .242 and have scored only 188 runs, a pittance for a squad many predicted to plate 900 runs this season with the additions of Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval.
But pitching hasn’t been a mitigating issue since the team sacrificed pitching coach Juan Nieves in exchange for Carl Willis. Boston pitchers are 10-16 this month with a 3.98 ERA, a record marked more for their offense’s inability to score runs than any detriment on their part.
That’s the 17th-best ERA in baseball for the month of May. Hey, it ain’t the ’91 Braves, but based on where these guys started the season, it’s enough, no?
So why Rodriguez? Why now?
In the spirit of transparency, you can tell why Rodriguez made his first start of many at the big league level. This was a “show me’’ callup for Cherington, roundly mocked throughout New England for another boring product that has little chance of sustaining itself into something special in 2015. This was Cherington boasting, “watch this’’ in Han Solo fashion, except we watched Rodriguez push it into hyperdrive instead of stalling out like so many other starters before him.
“I never get nervous,’’ Rodriguez said. “I just get nervous when I throw my first pitch in the game. I get on the mound, I’m looking around and my heart is almost broke because this is what we feel the first time we get to the big leagues. After that, I did what I can do.’’
There’s a subdued cockiness to read there, a confidence without being brash that most 22-year-olds, hell, most 35-year-old baseball players, don’t quite know how to grasp once they reach the pinnacle of everything they’ve worked for.
And that smirk on Cherington’s face today has to be something similar, except with the caveat of a “told ya so.’’
For one night.
Only?
History of great Red Sox rookies
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